Just One of the Guys (1985)
from Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy; Greg Wroblewski) and Tuna

Scoop's notes in white:

The mid 80s were the Golden Age of school-oriented comedies and
light "triumph of the underdog" dramas. The 1983-87 era produced Revenge of the Nerds, Risky
Business, Better off Dead, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, One Crazy
Summer, The Karate Kid, and Back to School, as well as a slew of
minor films like Just One of the Guys and Nerds in Paradise. These
films made stars of John Cusack, Tom Cruise and Matthew Broderick.

The youthploitation films of that era have many common elements:

The nerds, outsiders, and outcasts
must eventually triumph over the rigid caste system.

William Zabka is often the
one-dimensional evil jock who must eventually get his comeuppance.

Curtis Armstrong is often our hero's
nerdy best friend.

Just One of the Guys has all the
usual suspects except Curtis Armstrong, who didn't really fit in
because our hero is a girl.

A high school senior girl feels that
she has been denied a chance to win a journalism contest simply
because she is a girl. Therefore, following the official logic of
movie students, she transfers to another school, changes her hair
and clothing, and re-submits her article as a guy. She finds that
being a guy isn't as cool as it seems, especially when she is
pursued by a horny girl, and falls in love with a guy who thinks
she's another guy.

It isn't any better than it sounds,
but it isn't any worse either. Although it fails to rise to the
level of the best films listed above, it is a cute enough film which
mines some easy laughs with weird minor characters and predictable
situations. I didn't really get absorbed in it, and it never
raises itself to a level of either great truth-seeking or great
comedy, but I didn't feel an urge to grab the remote while I
watched, mostly because Joyce Hyser is quite believable and
sympathetic as Teri/Terry.

NUDITY REPORT

see Tuna's comments

Tuna's comments in
yellow:

Joyce Hyser plays a
high school student who believes she failed to win a summer
internship with a newspaper because she is female. She decides to
enroll in a different high school as a guy and win the contest from
there. OF course, things don't go quite as expected, and she falls
in love with a guy at the new high school. That is essentially the
entire plot, although the script is padded out to 90 minutes with a
lot of strange characters, such as Trekkies, a kid with a thing for
reptiles, and a jock/bully. The film also tries to get as much mileage as
possible out of the central character's problems with dressing for
phys ed and using the men's room.

At the end, Hyser exposes her breasts to the guy she has fallen for,
because she can't otherwise convince him that she is really a she. The clear shot of her
beautiful breasts represents an excellent level of nudity for a PG-13 film.
This is not only the climax, but clearly the real high water mark of
the film.

The meaning of the IMDb
score: 7.5 usually indicates a level of
excellence equivalent to about three and a half stars
from the critics. 6.0 usually indicates lukewarm
watchability, comparable to approximately two and a half stars
from the critics. The fives are generally not
worthwhile unless they are really your kind of
material, equivalent to about a two star rating from the critics,
or a C- from our system.
Films rated below five are generally awful even if you
like that kind of film - this score is roughly equivalent to one
and a half stars from the critics or a D on our scale. (Possibly even less,
depending on just how far below five the rating
is.

My own
guideline: A means the movie is so good it
will appeal to you even if you hate the genre. B means the movie is not
good enough to win you over if you hate the
genre, but is good enough to do so if you have an
open mind about this type of film. C means it will only
appeal to genre addicts, and has no crossover
appeal. (C+ means it has no crossover appeal, but
will be considered excellent by genre fans, while
C- indicates that it we found it to
be a poor movie although genre addicts find it watchable). D means you'll hate it even if you
like the genre. E means that you'll hate it even if
you love the genre. F means that the film is not only
unappealing across-the-board, but technically
inept as well. Any film rated C- or better is recommended for
fans of that type of film. Any film rated B- or better is
recommended for just about anyone. We don't score films below C-
that often, because we like movies and we think that most of
them have at least a solid niche audience. Now that you know
that, you should have serious reservations about any movie below
C-.

Based on this description, this is a C-. (Both
reviewers call it a watchable but unexceptional genre film.)
Tuna says, "Call this a coming of age comedy that scores well
with the school age set, but doesn't really offer much substance for anyone
too far past puberty."